South Sumatra Forest Fire Management Project Publications Files
projects
ASSOCIATION of SOUTH EAST ASIAN NATIONS and ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
TA 5778 – REGIONAL TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE ON
STRENGTHENING ASEANS CAPACITY TO PREVENT and MITIGATE
TRANSBOUNDARY ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION
THE PROBLEM: REGION-WIDE FIRES AND HAZE
Recurring episodes of land and forest fires have been a feature of Southeast Asias ecology since the Pleistocene Age. These wildfires are made possible by dry spells that make even rainforests dry enough to burn. During the Ice Age, long dry spells occurred in Southeast Asia, which made large areas of the region vulnerable to fire. More recently, the climatological disturbance known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has repeatedly set the stage for large-scale wildfires in the ASEAN region.
Over the past two decades, these fires have been so intense and frequent that they have threatened a number of ASEAN member countries. The damage from the fires has gone beyond the destruction of forest land. The smoke from the fires has threatened human health in adjacent ASEAN countries, which have thus far had little control over the magnitude, frequency, and duration of these fire-and-haze episodes.
Nearly all large-scale fires in the ASEAN region over the past two decades have been caused by humans, not natural causes. In some ways, this is good news, since the fires can be controlled by changing human behavior. The ASEAN countries are well aware of this. Between 1982 and 1997, ASEAN launched several national and international initiatives for controlling wildfires. These include the Bandung Conference of 1992, a number of regional workshops and meetings on the transboundary atmospheric pollution problem held in Indonesia and Malaysia between 1992 and 1995, and the establishment of a Haze Technical Task Force (HTTF) at the Sixth Meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on the Environment (ASOEN) in September of 1995.
While the HTTFs initial goal was to implement the 1995 ASEAN Co-operation Plan on Transboundary Pollution, the absence of specific plans rendered the Co-operation Plan ineffective. The ASEAN region then faced another major haze episode in 1997.
Following the 1997 fires and haze, the affected ASEAN countries decided to take more focused action. Indonesia and Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding on December 11, 1997, which allowed the two countries to co-operate in addressing the haze and other disasters.
The initiatives described above ultimately led to formulation of the Regional Haze Action Plan (RHAP), which was signed by the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Haze held in Singapore from 22-23 December 1997. This document, prepared by the HTTF, was the third of its type to be endorsed by the ASEAN member countries. Ultimately, the signing of the RHAP became a turning point in the way ASEAN went about preventing and reducing the damage from these fire-and-haze events.
THE SOLUTION AND THE RETA’s ROLE IN IT
Once the ASEAN Environment Ministers signed the RHAP, they immediately set out to make it an operational, rather than a descriptive, document. They realised that ASEAN’s fire-and-haze problem is too large for any one institution to address it effectively. Because of this, the Ministers requested assistance from the Asian Development Bank to make the RHAP a fully operational document. The Bank responded by approving Regional Technical Assistance (RETA) 5778-REG ((Strengthening the Capacity of ASEAN to Prevent and Mitigate Transboundary Atmospheric Pollution).1 At the request of the Government of Indonesia, the Bank also approved a complementary Advisory (i.e., bilateral) Technical Assistance (ADTA) 2999-INO (Planning for Fire Prevention and Drought Management) less than one month later.2
The purposes of both the RETA and the ADTA are to:
In short, the purpose of the RETA is to catalyse operationalization and implementation of the RHAP by the ASEAN Member Countries and to catalyse the development of a monitoring system for implementation of the RHAP.
The RHAP is meant to be implemented continuously. When the Ministers endorsed it, they endorsed a process, not a once-over exercise. This means that the RHAP is a ‘living’ document — one that is meant to be continuously updated. This is why the “official” version of the RHAP is not a hard-bound document, but an electronic document put on a restricted-access Intranet. All printed versions of the RHAP should therefore be seen as a snapshot taken at a single moment that freezes the action in a dynamic process of continuous updating and refinement.
ABOUT THE RHAP
The RHAP has three components: prevention, monitoring, and mitigation. In operational terms this means:
Prevention of forest fires and consequent haze, which includes:
Mitigation of land and forest fires and consequent haze, which comprises:
Monitoring for prevention and mitigation of forest fires and consequent haze by:
THE RETA’s ROLE IN CATALYZING FURTHER DONOR SUPPORT
Compared to other donor projects and programmes relating to ASEAN’s fire-and-haze problem, the RETA is a small project. It’s total funding is only US$1.2 million, and it is scheduled to last only 12 months. The money and time allocated for RETA activities is therefore small in relation to many of the other donor-supported fire-and-haze projects and programmes.
How can the RETA finish the task of operationalizing and implementing the RHAP in such a short time, and with such a small amount of money? Of course, the RETA cannot do all of this by itself nor was it ever intended to.
The RETA is actually meant to act as a catalyst. Its role is to link the large number of donor-supported projects and programmes with the fire-and-haze initiatives with those of the ASEAN member countries and with ASEAN as a whole.
The RETA’s first interaction with international donor organisations began just days after the RETA started operations. Just ten days after start-up, the RETA convened an Informal Meeting of Donors on April 23, 1998 in Jakarta. It then held an Open Forum Discussion a few weeks later on May 11, again in Jakarta. Several commitments from donors to work together with the RETA were made at these and later meetings. The list of partnerships that the RETA has developed during its first three months of operation is long and includes:
The goal of all of the partnerships listed above is the same: to work with ASEAN in implementing and monitoring the implementation of the RHAP in order to create a united front in the fight against the fires and haze.
Some of the partnerships in the list above include direct inputs into RETA activities, as well as broader donor assistance to implementing and monitoring the RHAP. These donors include Asian Development Bank, the Australian Agency for International Development, the Hanns Seidel Foundation, and United Nations Development Programme. The RETA gratefully acknowledges these direct contributions, as well as the contributions of all of the above organisations that have joined hands with the RETA in implementing the RHAP, and in finding a long-term, sustainable solution to what otherwise would have spelled repeated destruction of the environment in the ASEAN region.
1. RETA 5778-REG, in an amount of USD1.0 million, approved on February 24, 1998; ASEAN counterpart funding in an amount of USD 0.2 million.
2. ADTA 2999-INO, in an amount of USD1.0 million, approved on March 20, 1998. State Ministry for National Development of the Republic of Indonesia (BAPENAS) counterpart funding in an amount of USD 0.2 million.
The ASEAN website offers access to the Regional Haze Action Plan (23 Dec 1997), the ASEAN Cooperation Plan on Transboundary Pollution (1995) and several Joint Press Statements of the ASEAN Ministerial Meetings on Haze (1997-1999).
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